The pain behind the name: Bedford's Claudia Fox Tree, a member of the Arawak Nation, talks about the controversy surronding the Washington Redskins

Monday

Jul 21, 2014 at 2:39 PMJul 21, 2014 at 4:50 PM

By Sam Perkinssperkins@wickedlocal.comWhat once was spoken in whispers and quickly shouted down has now grown into an increasingly loud roar: For several years, a debate has been waged over the name of the Washington Redskins, with calls for a name change growing in intensity.Those calling for change cite insensitivity, intolerance and outright racism behind the name, while proponents of the franchise’s current moniker, which dates back 80 years, cite history and claim it pays homage and respect to Native Americans.For Claudia Fox Tree, the issue hits much closer to home. Raised in Concord and a resident of Bedford for nearly 17 years, Fox Tree is a teacher in the Lincoln school system, a mother of five children whom have all come up through the Bedford school system, and a member of the Arawak Nation, the indigenous people of South America and the Caribbean who first met Columbus.Fox Tree’s strong identity as an Arawak, coupled with her life as a "contemporary American," gives her a unique perspective on the hotly debated topic of the Redskins’ name and the practice of using Native Americans as athletic mascots. Far beyond that, it gives her a unique perspective on life as an indigenous American in a country that has largely ignored, overlooked, or simply forgotten that its original inhabitants remain a part of its modern society.Fox Tree sat down with the Minuteman in the quiet room at the Free Public Library to talk about the great debate surrounding the Redskins – incidentally, the last team in the NFL to integrate – as well as many other issues and experiences facing members of the First Nations.First and foremost, what is the preferred or correct name to use when talking about Native Americans? I have been told that using the tribal name is correct, but what if someone is speaking about the race as a whole and not a specific individual or tribe?It is best to use the individual nation name whenever possible. I really like Indigenous People of the Western Hemisphere before 1492, but that’s a bit cumbersome. On the West Coast, they use American Indian; the East Coast uses Native American more. I don’t really like either of those, but I’ll use Native American to facilitate discussions. My favorite in writing is ‘First Nations’ People’ or ‘First Nation.’ Also, ‘tribe’ has the connotation of being more primitive than the modern world where we are living.How would you describe the experiences of being of the First Nation in modern America?The reality is 78 percent of Native Americans live off of the reservation; only 22 percent live on it, and the rest of us are contemporary people. We’re your neighbors, your coworkers. We’re connected to our ancestry, but we are not just what the media portrays us as. We aren’t portrayed as doctors, or bankers, we’re not portrayed as characters in sitcoms. It isn’t like you can turn on a TV show and see contemporary people portrayed. We’re only portrayed as living on the reservation, or being the Chief, of the warrior, or the villains in the Old West or the tragic figure and the oppressed in American history, but we aren’t portrayed as being a part of modern society.The thing that makes us really unique in this country compared to every other ethnic and racial group in the world is that we have no other place other than here: If we are not being successful, and making our culture survive, we can’t go anywhere else in the world to survive and thrive. Everyone else – African Americans, Jews, etc. – has somewhere else they could go to be surrounded by people who look like them and have some similar.Every other group in this country now has mainstream representation of achieving some level of success except for us. Think about that, we might not have equality yet, but you can think of mainstream portrayals in popular culture of people of every race achieving success, financially, politically, except for us.What were your personal experiences like growing up in a predominantly white suburb?I grew up in Concord. My father was the first one out of seven kids to go to college – he went on the GI Bill. My mother is German. We were one of like five families of color in the entire town. It was not easy – my brothers would get stopped in the neighborhood by the police to show their ID. And I never saw the name of my nation in print in the entire time until I went to college.When I was in public school there were other racial incidents going on. When I was in middle school the race riots were happening and the METCO program began. And I was largely not seen as an Arawak person or a Native American; I was seen as a person of color.Has your children’s experiences growing up and going to school in Bedford been different than yours was 20-30 years ago in Concord?My kids are growing up in a world that respects native people more than the world I grew up in. For them, they have been able to hold onto some pride.Bedford Schools have been really great in that they have been very open and very engaging with me. They might not have realized that something came across as offensive in literature or history books at first, but their has always been a really open dialogue and they have been really committed to cross-cultural understanding, and that goes beyond simply our experiences as Native Americans.You look at the events this year involving swastikas and anti-Semitism. They’re facing these issues head on, which is really to be respected. I do a lot of teacher training, and every community has these kinds of issues, and either they aren’t talking about it or acknowledging it, or they have bigger fish to fry and it isn’t an issue of importance. The fact that Bedford has made it public, and faced it head on in public, is really to be commended.For you, is the Washington Redskins’ name offensive?The problem with the mascots in general, specifically the Redskins or even the Redmen, is problematic, because it refers to a racist practice: We weren’t the ones who began scalping, that was Europeans who scalped native people – you could prove you had killed someone by collecting their scalp – because money was given on a bounty for the hair. When you cashed in at trading posts, you would turn in your bearskin and your four beaver pelts and your five redskins – that is what the term Redskin comes from: killing and scalping natives.Naming a team the Redskins would be akin to naming a team after the horrors at Auschwitz or naming a team in reference to lynching. It’s taking something incredibly racist and naming your team after it. Would we use a swastika as a symbol for a team?What is your response to the argument that naming the team the Redskins pays homage or respect to the First Nation?I’ve never had that question before; let me think about it – I’m just kidding, I hear that all the time. The counter to that is, that it isn’t a respectful practice [scalping], so naming a team after that couldn’t be respectful.When our words, and their original meanings are no longer connected to something that belongs to our nations, there’s no respect in it at all.Here’s what I mean, I’m going to name three things and you tell me what you think of: Winnebago, Sequoia and Pontiac. Did you think of the people of the Great Lakes when I said Winnebago? Because that’s who they are. Did you think of Sequoia, the multiracial Cherokee man who invented an alphabet despite not being literate in any language? And did you think of Pontiac, who was a leader who said ‘we need to be really careful about our interactions with Europeans, otherwise we’re going to lose our culture’?Have you or your family had any experiences locally with mascots that you found offensive?Massachusetts has the most Native American mascots of any state, and I think it is because the traditionalism runs so deep here.When we went to Pentucket (Regional High for son Dakota’s football game), and they had a person dressed in a full headdress and war paint, and it was really, really offensive to be on the Bedford side and watch that scene of all these caricatures. And that was a game where Dakota had several sacks in overtime – I thought that was pretty fitting.I have a personal affinity for Bedford's mascot, the Buccaneers, because it is the Arawack word for the people they encountered on ships.What about claims from Redskins management and ownership that they’ve conducted polls and that most members of First Nations do not find it offensive?There’s a lot of polls, and if you conduct any poll with any racial or ethnic group you are going to have a range of answers and you can hand pick answers in any way you like. I would wonder about how transparent (the Redskins) have been in how they have gone about conducting these polls.I have seen a lot of polls, too, through the Native American community, and what the polls show is when they were sat down and asked, 80 percent or more do not like any of those names being used as a mascot. However, there are so many more pressing issues (for the community) that they can’t put the time into fighting the name, when they’re looking for clean water and good electricity and accurate representation.I’m at a privileged point where I’ve been educated, I am now in a middle class community, and I don’t have to argue about simply getting food on my table, or electricity, water, education, non-discriminatory classes, I can now argue about the mascot names.What would you want people to understand about the harm behind using First Nation names and references as mascots?It’s part of a much larger issue in that those sort of depictions are our only representation in modern America. It isn’t just the sin of stereotypes and misinformation, it’s the sin of absence – of not seeing yourself or the people you come from anywhere, of not seeing any contemporary images.Follow the Bedford Minuteman and editor Sam Perkins on Twitter at @Bedfordminutema.